Now that she’s a wife & mother, she has a real image to protect! This sex tape is going to be TROUBLE!

The news of an alleged sex tape, featuring Kendra Wilkinson and one of her ex-boyfriends, surprised us all this morning — but even more surprising is the devastating affect it could have on her career! Even though she rose to fame by taking off her clothes as a Playboy Bunny, her life has changed and she has a lot more at stake. She’s now married to Philadelphia Eagle Hank Baskett and the two have a baby together. HollywoodLife.com reached out to AOL Popeater’s Celebenonics columnist Jo Piazza for her take. “She’s at a different point in her career now,” Jo tells us. “Her original fans who came to know and love her from Playboy probably won’t be fazed, but this will hurt her trying to move to the next step in her career, branding herself as a wife and mother.”

“Sex tapes deal a lot with risk and reward business models,” Jo tells us. “One of the factors that determines whether a sex tape will hurt [a celebrity’s] career is how established they are in that career.”

For those seeking a quick rise to fame, a sex tape is unfortunately an easy way to make that happen. Sex tapes create controversy, controversy leads to buzz, and buzz leads to fame. If a person is already established, however, the sex tape could prove detrimental to their career. They already have a strong reputation they’ve worked hard to cultivate, and a sex tape could totally change the way the public perceives them.

And Kendra is hardly the only celebrity we’ve seen affected by the release of a sex tape. We chatted with Jo about other celebs who got caught on camera with their pants down and how their careers were changed (or in some cases, not changed) forever:

Celebs HELPED by their sex tapes:

Kim Kardashian: As crazy as it sounds, sex tapes can be a good thing for someone’s career! Just ask Kim, who co-starred in a video with then-boyfriend Ray-J in 2007. The tape was acquired by Vivid Entertainment (the same company who purchased Kendra’s!) for $1 million. Kim took the company to court and settled for $5 million. But did it kill her career? Just the opposite — it launched her career! Keeping up with the Kardashiansdebuted in Oct. 2007 and became a smash hit!

Paris Hilton: One Night in Paris, a sex tape featuring Paris and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon was distributed in 2003, just before the premiere of her FOX reality show The Simple Life. “When Paris was just starting out, she had nothing to lose by trying to bolster her name recognition with a sex tape,” Jo says. “The risk was high, but the payoff resulted in her mattress being used as a springboard to another level of fame and fortune.”

Celebs HURT by their sex tapes:

R. Kelly: A tape of the R&B crooner having sex with an allegedly 14-year-old girl surfaced in 2002. He was indicted on 21 separate counts, but was eventually found not guilty when the case finally went to trial in 2008. “R. Kelly was already established in [music] so he didn’t need that boost in name recognition,” Jo says. “A sex tape only served to damage his brand.”

Colin Farrell: The Irish bad boy sued his ex-girlfriend, Playboy model Nicole Narain, in 2005 after a two-year-old sex tape between them was released. Nicole claimed she wasn’t the person who released it to the public, and they settled the matter in court. The tape ended up surfacing online, and Colin and Nicole then took legal action against the host site. Jo says Colin’s career was affected in the same way as R. Kelly’s. Because he was already an established actor with a reputation, he didn’t need any career boost. His career, Jo feels, was negatively impacted by the release of his tape.

Celebs UNAFFECTED by their sex tapes:

Pamela Anderson: The sex tape filmed by Pam and ex-husband Tommy Lee during their 1995 honeymoon is arguably the most infamous one of our time. It soared to popularity on the Internet, and the couple eventually received $1.5 million in court for their troubles. But did it affect either of their careers? Not so, says Jo! “Pam and Tommy were the king and queen of trashiness, so their public didn’t expect anything less.”

Dustin Diamond: The Saved by the Bell alum made a tape with his fiancée in 2006, and even hired a porn director to make it look professional! Dustin claims it was never meant to be seen, and that he and his friends would show each other’s tapes frequently. “Dustin’s career was over and therefore he had nothing to lose,” Jo says. “That sex tape was a ‘hail Mary’ pass to make the public interested in him again.” Sadly for Dustin, it didn’t.